


Driven Like the Snow

by Cluegirl



Series: Bei Mir Bist du Schon [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/F, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 08:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jotuns come to New York looking for Loki, they bring some very bad weather with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driven Like the Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merideath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merideath/gifts).



> Just a quickie to shake the dust off. At the request of Merideath, via Tumblr.

"Darcy?!" 

She gulped down a scream, just barely, and only because she realized that the shape looming up out of the flying snow had spoken to her in Steve's voice. She uncurled from her huddle, snow falling in clumps from her hat, her boots, the folds of her coat, and how long had she _been_ there, crying like a stupid _girl_ on the apartment block's stoop for so damned much to build up on her anyway? 

"Buck, I've found her. Head back home," She heard Steve say, his soldier-voice laced through with such relief he almost sounded ready to cry himself. Then, he knelt down in the snow that was already knee deep, caught her face in both his hands, and kissed her just as if she wasn't swollen, red, and gross with tears. And just like that, the sobs she had almost, _almost_ managed to fight down were back. She couldn't help collapsing just a little into Steve's mass as he wound his strong arms around her and scooped her up out of the snow like she was a lost kitten.

"God, Darcy, we were so worried..." his breath scorched across her ear as he folded her tight into his chest and began to walk, wading through the blackout streets and whiteout weather as if neither meant a thing to him. "When Agent Coulson said you weren't at SHIELD HQ, Buck tried to find your phone, but the power grid-" He stopped, kissed her some more, though she tried to hide her face in his big wool coat, because she was _crying_ , dammit, and who the hell looks good when they're covered in tears and snot? But Steve didn't care, and that just made her gross sobbing worse. "Darcy, Honey, why the hell didn't you stay inside?"

"I... on the subway," she managed, thick and gluey, and too shaken to pull away in defense of her mortified dignity because damn him, he was so _warm_ , and she'd begun to think she wouldn't ever feel it again. "The train just stopped in the... tunnel and went... dark and then there were ... those blue guys, and they were ... and civilians and... they were running and freaking out and they... with the ice, and my...gun is in my desk at work and ...tazer didn't do _anything_ , and he..." She gulped hard, tried to slow the words that were crowding out between her chattering teeth. Relief mixed with jittery rage, and the terror she hadn't really had time for though, and coherency fell hard before the flow. 

"Third rail, and that one didn't get up but the other one... and Jotuns are so _big_ and those long legs, and I can't fucking run for shit on ice, but there were these _kids_ , and they were just standing there _crying,_ and I... led the other one away but I ... so lost down there in the dark, and it was a fucking _blizzard_ up here, and I couldn't see and there was... power line on the ground, and I ran for it and he... Oh god, Steve it _stank_ so bad, and he _screamed_ , and I thought he was still gonna get up anyway and come find me so I ran and and I lost my goddamned _phone_ and my purse, and my ID's in there, and then the power was all out so I can't see _anything_ and I thought I was gonna freeze to death and you wouldn't even know what-"

"Shhh baby," he purred, though she could hear emotion shaking his voice. "Shhh. Didn't happen. Not this time. You were only a couple blocks away from home, and we're nearly there now. Bucky will meet us there, and we'll get you warm and dry and-"

"Bucky's gonna shout at me," she heard herself say in the tiniest, most pathetic voice of _ever_ , and because of Steve's dumb old Super Soldier hearing, of course he heard every stupid word. And worse, he laughed at it too.

"Yeah, probably," he said, pausing at the door (to the _right_ apartment block, apparently,) to key open the door and muscle it open through two feet of piled-up snow. "I'll try not to let him call you names, but if you let on you went toe-to-toe with two Jotun invaders all by yourself, I can't promise he'll hold back." 

"Well at least _I_ didn't die," she griped, knowing it for a cheap shot even as she took it.

Steve only laughed though, and tucked her in closer to edge them through the door. "Good thing you didn't, or I'd be shouting at you too," he said. "Might still, a little bit, once I get over just being glad you're ok."

Darcy cursed under her breath, then flinched at how loud it sounded when the doors swung shut behind them and locked the howling wind and flying snow outside. The air was a warm, bright yellow caress that made her shiver all the harder into Steve's arms, snow melting down her collar and boots, and all she could think of to say was, "How do we have power?"

"Stark," Steve said as if that answered everything, which Darcy supposed it did, really. "Hang on," he added as he shifted her around to face him, looped her arms over his shoulders and hefted either leg up around his waist.

"I can walk up," she lied, fumbling to at least manage to cross her ankles behind him as he jolted up the steep, narrow stairs at what felt like a run. His hands felt huge and sure, and hot as burning coals through the thin wool of her trousers as he cupped her ass and held her close. "I'm okay now."

But Steve only shook his head and kept going. "Indulge me, sweetheart," he said, and she could no more struggle loose from the plea hidden in his voice than she could kick her way free of his arms without falling ass over tit down three flights. So she focused on clinging to him physically the way she'd been clinging to the _idea_ of him, and of Bucky, and of how she _would_ find her way home to them, and they _weren't_ gonna lose her to any giant fucking Smurphs and a stupid _snowstorm_ , and it would be all right, it really really would, because her boys were counting on her not to leave them, and...

"Here we are," Steve broke into the rising tide of shakes, and his hands loosened beneath her to let her thighs slip free and set her feet on the floor. But his arms stayed tight around her shoulders as she figured out how to stand again, and if she leaned into his soggy wool peacoat a little longer than was strictly necessary just to smell him inside it, Steve was too much of a gentleman to say anything about it. "We're home, honey," he murmured as if he'd heard her thinking it, pulling her hat off with one hand and smoothing her wet hair from her face with the other. "You made it home." And then he kissed her again, sweet and strong and proud this time, and it was so, _so_ much better than the desperate, frightened, shaky, relief-kisses he'd had for her earlier. Darcy whined and curved up into him, drawing them both farther into it because now it was safe to admit how scared she'd been that she wouldn't ever get this again.

"So," Bucky said, wry and sardonic, and so close behind her that if Steve hadn't been holding Darcy to him, she'd have screamed and flailed. "We startin' the party out here then? 'Cause you know I'm game, but I think Steve's a little shy about givin the neighbors an eyeful." His arms came up around her, crushed Darcy between the immovable object of Steve and the irresistible force of his best friend, and they both could feel that she was _not_ the only one shaking as they stood there, propped together in limp relief and dripping clumps of snow on the shitty hall carpet.

"Shut up, Barnes," Darcy grumbled once she'd managed to fight down the stupid tears again and eel around between them so she could kiss the scared off his face. "Frostbite is not sexy on anybody but you and Super Steve." She felt the chest at her back huff a silent chuckle, and smiled to see the barb strike an amused eyebrow on Bucky's face. "I happen to be cold, cranky, and sore, and I require cocoa, dry blankets, and about three hours of snuggles before there will be any partying of any kind."

He kissed her again, all dare and defiance, but kept it quick. "Sounds fair, Doll," he said, backing off only far enough to work down the buttons on her soggy coat. "That should give you enough time to figure out how to explain to me how your cell phone came to be underneath an electrocuted Frost Giant down on Fourth Avenue."

"You found my phone?" 

Bucky's eyebrow boosted a little higher, as if to say in the silent, scathing way of ex-Soviet Assassins, 'Let the negotiations begin...' 

"Yeah, I found it," he said, slow and precise, " _Under_. The. Electrocuted. Frost. Giant."

"But you _found_ my phone!" Darcy insisted, making grabby hands at him.

"That would be the part you heard," Steve snickered as he nudged them all into shuffling motion toward the open apartment door at the end of the hall. 

"Dude, whatever," she shot back, stripping off her mittens and unwinding her scarf. "You come talk to me once you've had to rebuild a contacts list with _more_ than four numbers on it." But Darcy was smiling as she said it, the last clumps of snow and panic falling away in warmth and light, the kettle whistling away on the stove, and love of her heroes curling in, tight and strong around her as the door swung shut on everything else in the world.


End file.
